H.I.V.-Infected Man Accused of Sodomy In Attack on Boy, 11

Published: January 15, 1992

An 11-year-old boy was abducted yesterday as he walked to school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, taken to a fourth-floor apartment and sodomized, the police said.

The police arrested a suspect who, they said later, was infected with the virus that causes AIDS.

The suspect, an unemployed man who was on parole from prison, was identified as Troy Rivera, 27 years old, of 172 West 77th Street in Manhattan. He was arrested last night and charged with with sodomy, unlawful imprisonment and endangering the welfare of a minor.

The police said the boy was walking to school at about 8 A.M. when he was accosted on 77th Street between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues by a stranger, a man who asked him to do an errand for him. The boy refused, saying he had to go to school, the police said. The man then seized the boy and brought him into a nearby apartment building.

The boy was later freed. He ran to school and told a security guard what had happened.

The boy was taken to Roosevelt Hospital, where he was treated and released. The police said they arrested Mr. Rivera after the boy was able to bring them back to the apartment.

A police spokeswoman said last night that Mr. Rivera had been imprisoned in 1984 "for a similar crime," and that he had been out on parole since November 1990.

The police, who revealed late last night that Mr. Rivera was HIV-positive, would not say how they learned that information. Nor would they say whether it would have an affect on the charges against Mr. Rivera.